Definition

Social Force Diagrams reduce confusing complexity to clear simplicity by organizing the main forces causing a social problem into a standard diagram format, using a standard vocabulary of terms. This standardization makes it much easier to find a difficult problem's causal structure. The standard format is shown below.

How Social Force Diagrams Work

Like the way physical problems are caused by physical forces like gravity and momentum, social problems are causes by social forces. Social Force Diagrams organize the forces into three main types: Root Cause Forces (R), Superficial Solution Forces (S), and Fundamental Solution Forces (F).

The Law of Root Causes tells us that all causal problems arise from their root causes. Root cause forces are represented by the left blue block arrow. Once this force is understood, you have found the root causes.

But finding those root causes is not easy in difficult social problems due to system complexity. To make correct root cause analysis easier, Social Force Diagrams divide a problem into two layers: the superficial layer, which is easy to see, and the fundamental layer, which is hard to see.

Superficial Layer - First you use analyze the superficial layer to determine what the Superficial Solution Forces are. This is relatively easy because you already know what the symptoms and the superficial solutions are. Superficial solutions are the solutions that have been failing to solve the problem, because they were designed to solve the intermediate causes. Unless the laws of physics change, this will never work. Given that information, finding the low leverage points and intermediate causes follows fairly easily.

Fundamental Layer - Once you get this far, you have an important clue for how to dig deeper and penetrate to the fundamental layer. What is the deeper cause of the intermediate causes? That will lead to the root causes. From there you can determine the high leverage points that, which pushed on, will resolve the root causes. Finally, you can develop fundamental solution elements to push on the high leverage points. If you have correctly identified the root causes, your fundamental solutions will probably work, though fine tuning is almost always necessary.

The Two Key Equations - Why exactly do superficial solution work only partially, temporarily, or not at all? It's because the Superficial Solution Forces can never be greater than the Root Cause Forces. The diagram shows this law of physics with S < R. The equation means "S is always less than R." By contrast, Fundamental Solution Forces work because F > R, meaning "Fundamental solutions can succeed because they can be designed such that F > R." Note how diagram arrow thickness also shows these laws.

These two equation, S < R and F > R, epitomize how activists need to think in order to solve the very difficult social problems we face today. The two equations form the Second and Third Laws of Root Cause Analysis.

Mode Change - Social Force Diagrams contain a powerful feature: They describe how mode change occurs. Once the Root Causes Forces are resolved, the system undergoes a rapid mode change to its new state of natural behavior (its new homeostasis). The result is the New Root Cause Forces. The system now “wants” to be in the desired mode, just as much as it “wanted” to be in the undesired mode before.

System modes exists due to systemic forces. Here systemic means “originating from the system in such a manner as to affect the behavior of most or all social agents of certain types, as opposed to originating from individual agents.” (Harich, 2010) A mode is a continued pattern of behavior. Mode lock-in (also called homeostasis, dynamic equilibrium, policy resistance, and organizational change resistance) occurs when a system’s feedback loops work together to hold the system into a particular mode via compensating feedback. The stronger the lock-in, the stronger the automatic resistance to mode change. Examples of lock-in are thermostats, the guidance system in a missile, and the many self-regulating behaviors of living systems like cells, species, and ecosystems.

All difficult social problems strongly resist superficial solution efforts due to strong mode lock-in, because a social problem is a living system. Thus, lock-in to an undesired mode occurs in all difficult systemic social problems.

The central role of lock-in in the environmental sustainability problem has long been noted, such as by Garrett Hardin in The Tragedy of the Commons, 1968:

Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit—in a world that is limited.

Example 1 - The Authoritarian Ruler Problem

The best way to learn Social Force Diagrams is to study how the tool can be applied to past difficult social problems. Below is one such problem.

One of history’s most intractable problems was autocratic rule by countless warlords, dictators, and kings. The Autocratic Ruler Problem was eventually solved by the invention of modern democracy. This took thousands of years and much painful trial and error because the root cause was unknown.

However, now it is. This allows the retrospective social force diagram shown above to be constructed. The diagram shows at a glance why superficial solutions failed to solve the problem for so long, why the fundamental solution worked, and why, once the mode change occurred, political systems have tended to stay in the new mode due to the right new balancing feedback loop.

Like the other examples, the diagram is simplified. It is not the summary result of full application of the System Improvement Process (SIP), which would involve a social force diagram for each subproblem, a filled in SIP matrix, and simulation models as needed.

Example 2 - The Recurring Wars in Europe Problem

Below is a social force diagram for the Recurring Wars in Europe Problem. The diagram shows at a glance why traditional solutions didn’t work. They didn’t resolve the root cause. But after the horrors of two successive world wars on European soil, problem solvers said never again and looked deeper for the root cause. They found it. The resulting solution, the European Union, driven by the Benefits of Cooperation feedback loop, caused a permanent mode change. Today no member of the union would even consider war against an-other member since that would be terribly self-destructive.

The superficial solutions failed because they pushed on a low leverage point. All those peace treaties, military defenses, royal marriages between countries, and so on did nothing to resolve the root cause. The drive to maximize a state’s competitive advantage was a much stronger force than the superficial solutions.

The fundamental solution worked because it pushed on a high leverage point. A high leverage point is connected to a root cause in such a manner that pushing on the high leverage point greatly reduced the root cause force to an acceptable level or eliminates it altogether. This resolves the old root cause forces and creates new root cause forces.

The new root cause forces resulted from careful design of the fundamental solution. Once member states took the first strong step toward tight inter-country coupling, a new reinforcing feedback loop began. The European Union started with market integration and proceeded to further integration (for most members) via a common currency, membership in NATO, military integration, open borders be-tween member states, common policies on agriculture, fisheries, and regional development, etc.

The diagram explains one reason why the United Nations has failed to prevent war between its member states. The United Nations’ work does not push on the high leverage point sufficiently. Another reason is systemic change resistance to solving common good problems.

Example 3 - The Money in Politics Problem

A third example is the Money in Politics Problem. The problem has plagued democratic systems ever since they were born, though it has grown more acute in the last several centuries due to the appearance of large for-profit corporations, labeled Corporatis profitis in the diagram.

The symptoms are that political elections and decisions mainly favor powerful special interests, notably large for-profit corporations and the rich. The problem is widely called the corruption or “money in politics” problem, since it’s obvious there’s too much special interest money in politics. If that’s the cause, then the leverage point strategy is also obvious: regulate the undesired behavior. This has been attempted with campaign finance reform, lobbying restrictions, etc.

But serious reform via new laws doesn’t work in most countries, especially large ones like Russia, the United States, and India, for two reasons. First, the foxes are guarding hen house, so they oppose such legislation, causing it to pass in weakened form or not at all. Second, if it is passed, politicians and special interests adapt and find new ways to circumvent the new laws. Continual solution failure indicates there must be a deeper cause of too much special interest money in politics.

If one drills down for that deeper cause, armed with a process like SIP, eventually you will find the root causes. This we have done as presented later. Briefly, the main root cause is mutually exclusive goals between Corporatis profitis and Homo sapiens. The goal of Corporatis profitis is maximization of short term profit. The goal of Homo sapiens is optimization of long term quality of life for people, for those living and their descendants. These goals are so mutually exclusive they cannot be achieved in the same system. Currently the corporate life form dominates the human system to such an extent that its goal has become the implicit goal of the system, as demonstrated by system behavior. The inevitable result is the superficial solutions don’t work.

But if problem solvers direct their efforts to fundamental solutions that can resolve the root cause, everything changes. Once the root cause is resolved the system undergoes a mode change, to the new symptoms as shown. All this requires is correct knowledge of the problem’s root causes.

More Than Two Layers

The above Social Force Diagrams all have two layers. This is the simplest possible diagram. As the analysis grows in complexity it becomes necessary to use more than two layers. Below is are examples from the book Cutting Through Complexity.

The examples show analysis results for applying the System Improvement Process to the global environmental sustainability problem. The first example shows a Social Force Diagram for the unsustainable mode. The second example shows a diagram for the sustainable mode, which occurs after the mode change induced by solution elements implementation.

First let's look at the summary diagram. This shows the system before the mode change in terms of how the four subproblems, the key feedback loop, and the all-important Main Root Cause.

The diagram summarizes the shape of the larger more complex diagrams. You can see at a glance how the Main Root Cause causes subproblem B. This in turn causes subproblems A and C. Due to the feedback loop, growth in strength of subproblem C increases the strength of subproblem B, which creates the reinforcing feedback loop. This loop causes the problem to spiral out of control quickly, so fast you hardly know what's happening.

For example, that's what's happened in the United States in 2016, with the sudden ascendance of Donald Trump and the Republican Party to control of all three branches of government. The rise to power, and the resulting damage, is unprecedented and severe.

Next let's look at the multi-layer Social Force Diagram for the unsustainable mode, shown below. The above diagram has been expanded to show the necessary detail. If you read this diagram slowly you can see the entire analysis, summarized at a high level.

Finally, below is the multi-layer Social Force Diagram for the sustainable mode, after the mode change caused by solution elements pushing on the high leverage points.

The important point is that after the mode change occurs, only the solution forces for subproblems B and D are necessary for long-term mode change success.

Miscellaneous Examples

The Messy Apartment Problem SFD, built by William Kurkian as part of the Training Plan, was designed to be a slightly humorous take on a common problem. It's not meant to be fully correct, as that would take much more analysis.

The two fundamental intermediate cause (FIC) nodes are fundamental rather than superficial, because there were no associated solutions that attempted to resolve these intermediate causes. Instead, these nodes were discovered as part of the root cause analysis.

Of considerable interest is the Upscale Bachelor Pad feedback loop diagram and the People Expect... node. The fundamental solutions (FS) cause two changes. One is an increase in Cause People to Visit. The other is an increase in the People Expect... node. This in turn increases the Incentive to Keep It Clean node, which creates the feedback loop.

Overall, this is a fairly sophisticated SFD that illustrates the flexibility and power of the tool. Its strongest feature is diagraming the feedback loop that causes the mode change and keeps the system in the new mode.

Is the feedback loop really fairly permanent and self-managing? That's what a deeper analysis could explore.

Are you as concerned as we are about the rise of populust authoritarians like Donald Trump? Have you noticed that democracy is unable to solve important problems like climate change, war, and poverty? If so this film series is for you!

Why is democracy in crisis? One intermediate cause is a weakened Voter Feedback Loop. Powerful root cause forces are working to weaken the loop.

The most eye-opening article on the site since it was written in December 2005. More people have contacted us about this easy to read paper and the related Dueling Loops videos than anything else on the site.

Do you every wonder why the sustainability problem is so impossibly hard to solve? It's because of the phenomenon of change resistance. The system itself, and not just individual social agents, is strongly resisting change. Why this is so, its root causes, and several potential solutions are presented.

The analysis was performed over a seven year period from 2003 to 2010. The results are summarized in the Summary of Analysis Results, the top of which is shown below:

Click on the table for the full table and a high level discussion of analysis results.

The Universal Causal Chain

This is the solution causal chain present in all problems. Popular approaches to solving the sustainability problem see only what's obvious: the black arrows. This leads to using superficial solutions to push on low leverage points to resolve intermediate causes.

Popular solutions are superficial because they fail to see into the fundamental layer, where the complete causal chain runs to root causes. It's an easy trap to fall into because it intuitively seems that popular solutions like renewable energy and strong regulations should solve the sustainability problem. But they can't, because they don't resolve the root causes.

In the analytical approach, root cause analysis penetrates the fundamental layer to find the well hidden red arrow. Further analysis finds the blue arrow.Fundamental solution elements are then developed to create the green arrow which solves the problem. For more see Causal Chain in the glossary.

This is no different from what the ancient Romans did. It’s a strategy of divide and conquer. Subproblems like these are several orders of magnitude easier to solve because you are no longer trying (in vain) to solve them simultaneously without realizing it. This strategy has changed millions of other problems from insolvable to solvable, so it should work here too.

For example, multiplying 222 times 222 in your head is for most of us impossible. But doing it on paper, decomposing the problem into nine cases of 2 times 2 and then adding up the results, changes the problem from insolvable to solvable.

Change resistance is the tendency for a system to resist change even when a surprisingly large amount of force is applied.

Overcoming change resistance is the crux of the problem, because if the system is resisting change then none of the other subproblems are solvable. Therefore this subproblem must be solved first. Until it is solved, effort to solve the other three subproblems is largely wasted effort.

The root cause of successful change resistance appears to be effective deception in the political powerplace. Too many voters and politicians are being deceived into thinking sustainability is a low priority and need not be solved now.

The high leverage point for resolving the root cause is to raise general ability to detect political deception. We need to inoculate people against deceptive false memes because once people are infected by falsehoods, it’s very hard to change their minds to see the truth.

Life form improper coupling occurs when two social life forms are not working together in harmony.

In the sustainability problem, large for-profit corporations are not cooperating smoothly with people. Instead, too many corporations are dominating political decision making to their own advantage, as shown by their strenuous opposition to solving the environmental sustainability problem.

The root cause appears to be mutually exclusive goals. The goal of the corporate life form is maximization of profits, while the goal of the human life form is optimization of quality of life, for those living and their descendents. These two goals cannot be both achieved in the same system. One side will win and the other side will lose. Guess which side is losing?

The high leverage point for resolving the root cause follows easily. If the root cause is corporations have the wrong goal, then the high leverage point is to reengineer the modern corporation to have the right goal.

The world’s solution model for solving important problems like sustainability, recurring wars, recurring recessions, excessive economic inequality, and institutional poverty has drifted so far it’s unable to solve the problem.

The root cause appears to be low quality of governmental political decisions. Various steps in the decision making process are not working properly, resulting in inability to proactively solve many difficult problems.

This indicates low decision making process maturity. The high leverage point for resolving the root cause is to raise the maturity of the political decision making process.

In the environmental proper coupling subproblem the world’s economic system is improperly coupled to the environment. Environmental impact from economic system growth has exceeded the capacity of the environment to recycle that impact.

This subproblem is what the world sees as the problem to solve. The analysis shows that to be a false assumption, however. The change resistance subproblem must be solved first.

The root cause appears to be high transaction costs for managing common property (like the air we breath). This means that presently there is no way to manage common property efficiently enough to do it sustainably.

The high leverage point for resolving the root cause is to allow new types of social agents (such as new types of corporations) to appear, in order to radically lower transaction costs.

Solutions

There must be a reason popular solutions are not working.

Given the principle that all causal problems arise from their root causes, the reason popular solutions are not working (after over 40 years of millions of people trying) is popular solutions do not resolve root causes.

This is Thwink.org’s most fundamental insight.

Summary of Solution Elements

Using the results of the analysis as input, 12 solutions elements were developed. Each resolves a specific root cause and thus solves one of the four subproblems, as shown below:

Click on the table for a high level discussion of the solution elements and to learn how you can hit the bullseye.

The 4 Subproblems

The solutions you are about to see differ radically from popular solutions, because each resolves a specific root cause for a single subproblem. The right subproblems were found earlier in the analysis step, which decomposed the one big Gordian Knot of a problem into The Four Subproblems of the Sustainability Problem.

Everything changes with a root cause resolution approach. You are no longer firing away at a target you can’t see. Once the analysis builds a model of the problem and finds the root causes and their high leverage points, solutions are developed to push on the leverage points.

Because each solution is aimed at resolving a specific known root cause, you can't miss. You hit the bullseye every time. It's like shooting at a target ten feet away. The bullseye is the root cause. That's why Root Cause Analysis is so fantastically powerful.

The high leverage point for overcoming change resistance is to raise general ability to detect political deception. We have to somehow make people truth literate so they can’t be fooled so easily by deceptive politicians.

This will not be easy. Overcoming change resistance is the crux of the problem and must be solved first, so it takes nine solution elements to solve this subproblem. The first is the key to it all.

B. How to Achieve Life Form Proper Coupling

In this subproblem the analysis found that two social life forms, large for-profit corporations and people, have conflicting goals. The high leverage point is correctness of goals for artificial life forms. Since the one causing the problem right now is Corporatis profitis, this means we have to reengineer the modern corporation to have the right goal.

Corporations were never designed in a comprehensive manner to serve the people. They evolved. What we have today can be called Corporation 1.0. It serves itself. What we need instead is Corporation 2.0. This life form is designed to serve people rather than itself. Its new role will be that of a trusted servant whose goal is providing the goods and services needed to optimize quality of life for people in a sustainable manner.

What’s drifted too far is the decision making model that governments use to decide what to do. It’s incapable of solving the sustainability problem.

The high leverage point is to greatly improve the maturity of the political decision making process. Like Corporation 1.0, the process was never designed. It evolved. It’s thus not quite what we want.

The solution works like this: Imagine what it would be like if politicians were rated on the quality of their decisions. They would start competing to see who could improve quality of life and the common good the most. That would lead to the most pleasant Race to the Top the world has ever seen.

Presently the world’s economic system is improperly coupled to the environment. The high leverage point is allow new types of social agents to appear to radically reduce the cost of managing the sustainability problem.

This can be done with non-profit stewardship corporations. Each steward would have the goal of sustainably managing some portion of the sustainability problem. Like the way corporations charge prices for their goods and services, stewards would charge fees for ecosystem service use. The income goes to solving the problem.

Corporations gave us the Industrial Revolution. That revolution is incomplete until stewards give us the Sustainability Revolution.

This analyzes the world’s standard political system and explains why it’s operating for the benefit of special interests instead of the common good. Several sample solutions are presented to help get you thwinking.

Note how generic most of the tools/concepts are. They apply to far more than the sustainability problem. Thus the glossary is really The Problem Solver's Guide to Difficult Social System Problems, using the sustainability problem as a running example.